


She's Got Horns Like The Devil, Pointed At Me

by Sherlocked



Series: The Mulroys Owns My Soul [3]
Category: The Mulroys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherlocked/pseuds/Sherlocked
Summary: This? This is why we're not allowed to have nice things, Eve. This is gonna be c h a p t e r s.
Series: The Mulroys Owns My Soul [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802716





	She's Got Horns Like The Devil, Pointed At Me

Elias didn’t remember a lot from his very early years in a way that's practically pointed. As he got older and it got farther away, it got easier to pretend it didn’t happen. Not that he didn’t have some very specific nightmares, of course, but still. UNIT was his chance to leave that behind.

He didn’t really tell anyone. As far as Margot was concerned, his early childhood was “rough” and she’d blessedly left it alone. He’d almost told Yvette, once, but then...well. 

Things happened. 

He recognized the signs, though, the little tells he remembered from his early childhood (and, though he refused to admit it to himself, from after he joined UNIT, too) and used them to his advantage. He knew what buttons to push and what strings to pull to get them to do whatever he wanted, remembered words and phrases flowing off his tongue easily. And all of them fell into step with something that was almost relief as they were given something familiar.

Well. Almost all of them.

-

It’s 1998 and the graduating Tactical and Technical Agents have been paired up into groups to start training together, the weak falling away slower as they were put through their paces. 

Elias fucking  _ hated _ babysitting duty, and hated it even more that he’d been assigned to the forest drills. Margot was here with him, but that was only the smallest of mercies, as she alternated between making fun of him for being 50 (she was a year younger than him, for Christ’s sake, he had to remember to organize her a giant, violently pink birthday party next year) and for the fact he kept seeing nothing in the trees.

Well. He told her it was nothing. And he wasn’t lying, given that it was actually things that weren’t there and had never been, distant memories of robes and axes meant for lumber and quite a bit of blood.

( _ He wasn’t fenced in. He could leave if he wanted. It hadn’t happened like they said. It wasn’t true.) _

“Hey, look.” Margot nudged him and he blinked, following her gaze as she nodded towards the treeline. “Mulroy’s pet techie’s an airhead like you.”

There was a hooded figure- No. No, just a figure in a hoodie- staring into the woods, Mulroy glaring at anyone who got too close, trying to be intimidating even with his broken arm. The young man’s uninjured hand was clenched white in the techie’s sleeve, betraying his gruff exterior for worry.

“Well, there’s only room for one airhead around here, what’s his name?”

“ _ Her _ name is East.”

“They’re letting anyone in nowadays, huh.” He smirked as she swatted him on the arm before raising his voice. “Mulroy, East, here,  _ now. _ ” 

Mulroy redirected his glare back at Elias before gently tugging at East’s arm. She seemed to freeze slightly if the pause was anything to go by (it was hard to tell underneath the oversized clothing) but she let herself be pulled along and up to Margot and Elias, Mulroy seeming loath to let her go himself. 

And he recognized it in her, in the way she hid in the hood, stood slightly behind Mulroy, kept her eyes down and away.

“East, was it?” There was a barely noticeable nod from underneath the hood. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you, try that again.”

“She-”

“I didn’t ask you, Mulroy, now did I?” The muscle in Mulroy’s jaw jumped as his glare hardened, but Elias ignored the younger man. He leaned down slightly to their height, head tilting slightly as his tone shifted closer to the ones in his childhood memories. “Did you not hear me, child?”

Her head snapped up, which he had expected. What he had  _ not _ expected was the death glare she leveled at him, her chin tilting up into something almost imperious. For a half second, he almost expected her to call the guards to take him away for his impudence.

And then he noted the plastic laced around her jaw and neck. He straightened and flicked East’s hood back, raising an eyebrow at the brace that seemed to be both holding her neck straight and her jaw shut. From behind him, Margot whistled. 

“Jesus, Mulroy, what the fuck happened?” Mulroy started to stutter out an answer before East swatted him lightly on the arm and her hands started moving, signing fluently.

_ He broke my jaw, so I broke his arm. _

Elias snorted out a laugh as Mulroy turned red, sputtering slightly as he looked between Margot and East. Margot raised an eyebrow at him.

“Care to share with the class, Mallard, or am I now allowed in on this little joke of yours?”

“He damaged his techie. His techie reacted in kind.”

Margot’s eyebrows went up and she turned on Mulroy with a lecture on how you don’t unnecessarily abuse your support staff, a show that was made all the more entertaining by the fact that it wasn’t directed at him for once. It also gave him the freedom to inspect East.

Who was already watching him. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he should be surprised.

Every time Mulroy’s voice started going up, East tugged on the back of his shirt, and he’d stop, even as his ears started going bright red. He personally found that interesting, given he hadn’t really seen that used anywhere outside some very specific clubs in New York City- Soho? Probably- but their energy wasn’t anything...off. It was platonic, practically familial, and as it slotted into place Elias realized that Margot’s little protege had imprinted and been imprinted upon, which was varying levels of  _ fun _ . 

Margot dismissed the teenagers properly chastized, watching them disappear into the crowd of their peers as they went to the dining hall for the evening meal before turning to Elias and raising an eyebrow. He raised one back, mirroring her crossed arms with a perfection of knowing someone for almost 40 years.

“What?”

“You saw that.”

“What? That your guard dog got a leash?”

“He got a  _ balance _ , E.”

“Whatever you want to call it, it’s probably going to extend his life span.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Elias’ eyebrows reached for his hairline at Margot’s sudden bluntness.

“Excuse me?”

“What. Is. Wrong. With. Her.” At Elias’ slow blink, she huffed out an annoyed breath. “There’s something... _ off _ about her. She moves the same way you do when y’all think no one’s looking.”

“I’m sure I don’t know-”

“Bullshit, E. She did- was in- ugh. Something happened to her. The same thing that happened to you. I want to make sure Mulroy is safe. So.  _ What is wrong with her _ .”

That was a good question, actually. She should have bowed her head slightly, deferential and halfway apologetic of supposed sins. Instead, he could almost feel the flames of her displeasure, a level of self control in her that, quite honestly, shouldn’t have been there.

It intrigued him.

“What’s her name?”

“Well, CPS records have her as Samantha East, but her intake paperwork has her as Sam.”

“Just Sam? Short for anything?”

“She didn’t say.”

( _ It wasn’t that, it couldn’t be that, it was just a coincidence- _ )

“Well, then. I’ll keep an eye out on East and keep you posted.” He pushed himself up into an exaggerated bow before straightening and crooking his arm for her. “Does that sound acceptable, Madame Director?” 

Her answering smirk was there and gone in a flash, but she laced her arm through his and set off to the dining hall with him.

“I’m not the Director, E-”

“Not yet, at least-”

“But yes. That sounds quite acceptable.”


End file.
